Cyprus-Forum.com

[shahmaran]

How come NO CLAIM on Varosha was made till a couple of years ago? Why did no one of the TC community bring up this claim in the 50s, 60s?

Simple, there was no valid claim. Evkaf land is a non issue. If it becomes an issue then we must look at monastery land in the same light- that of a pre existing claim by a religious insitution and we will find tha the Orthodox Church owns most if not all of Cyprus.

Lay off the crap then.

The Orthodox Church had no right nor power to own land up until the Ottoman's.

The rest is just details.

[Nikitas]

You have to read up on Cyprus under the Venetians once more. You will be surprised at the vast difference between what you were taught in school and the reality of the time.

If you can take a trip to Venice too. One of the biggest churches in Venice is Saint Demetrius, a Greek Orthodox Church. The main canal of the city is the Canal di Greci, the canal of the Greeks. There are Greek libraries dating back to the Middle Ages and collections of printint presses for Greek books. You think the Venetians embraced this presence while treating Greeks as enemies?

The Greek Orthodox Church was ranked after the catholic church in Cyprus but it was not as repressed as your Ottoman books tell you.

[shahmaran]

You have to read up on Cyprus under the Venetians once more. You will be surprised at the vast difference between what you were taught in school and the reality of the time.

If you can take a trip to Venice too. One of the biggest churches in Venice is Saint Demetrius, a Greek Orthodox Church. The main canal of the city is the Canal di Greci, the canal of the Greeks. There are Greek libraries dating back to the Middle Ages and collections of printint presses for Greek books. You think the Venetians embraced this presence while treating Greeks as enemies?

The Greek Orthodox Church was ranked after the catholic church in Cyprus but it was not as repressed as your Ottoman books tell you.

This is really annoying Nikitas, I just don't understand why everyone claims that my education must have been somehow affected by the Ottomans or whatever, since no one knows the slightest thing about me but instantly assume that because I object most of their views I must have somehow been "brainwashed" or have been through some faulty education.

Some people here assume way too much and are very quick to counter certain claims with nothing but ad hominem arguments.

As I have studied in many places, very capable of being able to decide whether a book is bias or not, and definitely able to read books in other languages, including Italian as I speak it fluently.

I will find the source where I am sure I remember reading about the Venetians treating Cyprus as nothing more than a military outpost and being far from popular on this island.

Plus, not that it matters, but I have visited Venice in the past along with other parts of Italy.

[Tim Drayton]

Today’s Yeni Düzen reports on a bicommunal event in which about 450 Turkish Cypriots from the village of Malia/Malya spent the day in their old village with about 500 Greek Cypriots from the same village.

http://www.yeniduzen.com/template.asp?a ... 1&zoneid=3

To judge by the pictures, it appears that a good time was had by all:





It seems to me that the truth lies somewhere between the two poles represented, on the one hand, by the article at the start of this thread and, on the other, the above images.

[Jerry]

Today’s Yeni Düzen reports on a bicommunal event in which about 450 Turkish Cypriots from the village of Malia/Malya spent the day in their old village with about 500 Greek Cypriots from the same village.

http://www.yeniduzen.com/template.asp?a ... 1&zoneid=3

To judge by the pictures, it appears that a good time was had by all:





It seems to me that the truth lies somewhere between the two poles represented, on the one hand, by the article at the start of this thread and, on the other, the above images.

What saddens me is that I can't tell who is GC and who is TC, they are the same people used and manipulated by forces beyond their control.

[denizaksulu]

You have to read up on Cyprus under the Venetians once more. You will be surprised at the vast difference between what you were taught in school and the reality of the time.

If you can take a trip to Venice too. One of the biggest churches in Venice is Saint Demetrius, a Greek Orthodox Church. The main canal of the city is the Canal di Greci, the canal of the Greeks. There are Greek libraries dating back to the Middle Ages and collections of printint presses for Greek books. You think the Venetians embraced this presence while treating Greeks as enemies?

The Greek Orthodox Church was ranked after the catholic church in Cyprus but it was not as repressed as your Ottoman books tell you.

Yes!! They were Greeks indeed.NOT CYPRIOTS. The Venetians did not give a shit about Cypriots. Ungrateful lot you all turned out to be. Cyprus was conquered from the Venetians NOT the Cypriots. What belonged to the Venetians reverted to the Ottomans.

[Oracle]

You have to read up on Cyprus under the Venetians once more. You will be surprised at the vast difference between what you were taught in school and the reality of the time.

If you can take a trip to Venice too. One of the biggest churches in Venice is Saint Demetrius, a Greek Orthodox Church. The main canal of the city is the Canal di Greci, the canal of the Greeks. There are Greek libraries dating back to the Middle Ages and collections of printint presses for Greek books. You think the Venetians embraced this presence while treating Greeks as enemies?

The Greek Orthodox Church was ranked after the catholic church in Cyprus but it was not as repressed as your Ottoman books tell you.

Yes!! They were Greeks indeed.NOT CYPRIOTS. The Venetians did not give a shit about Cypriots. Ungrateful lot you all turned out to be. Cyprus was conquered from the Venetians NOT the Cypriots. What belonged to the Venetians reverted to the Ottomans.

What utter tosh you talk ...

The Venetians worked in unison with Greek Cypriots and they intermarried. The Venetians spoke Greek, and most of the administrative posts were carried out by the islands nobility of Greek Cypriots. Yes there were a lot of peasants who were Greek Cypriots, but that's because they were the majority and the majority are usually the workforce.

The Venetians only stepped up their 'rule', actually imposing their hold on the island, only once the Ottomans started raiding and pillaging the island for treasures and payments some several years before their actual invasion.

Stop trying to change our history ... blooming Turks!

[shahmaran]

You have to read up on Cyprus under the Venetians once more. You will be surprised at the vast difference between what you were taught in school and the reality of the time.

If you can take a trip to Venice too. One of the biggest churches in Venice is Saint Demetrius, a Greek Orthodox Church. The main canal of the city is the Canal di Greci, the canal of the Greeks. There are Greek libraries dating back to the Middle Ages and collections of printint presses for Greek books. You think the Venetians embraced this presence while treating Greeks as enemies?

The Greek Orthodox Church was ranked after the catholic church in Cyprus but it was not as repressed as your Ottoman books tell you.

Yes!! They were Greeks indeed.NOT CYPRIOTS. The Venetians did not give a shit about Cypriots. Ungrateful lot you all turned out to be. Cyprus was conquered from the Venetians NOT the Cypriots. What belonged to the Venetians reverted to the Ottomans.

What utter tosh you talk ...

The Venetians worked in unison with Greek Cypriots and they intermarried. The Venetians spoke Greek, and most of the administrative posts were carried out by the islands nobility of Greek Cypriots. Yes there were a lot of peasants who were Greek Cypriots, but that's because they were the majority and the majority are usually the workforce.

The Venetians only stepped up their 'rule', actually imposing their hold on the island, only once the Ottomans started raiding and pillaging the island for treasures and payments some several years before their actual invasion.

Stop trying to change our history ... blooming Turks!

Actually when the Venetians came the islands was a VERY multicultural place, it was never all about the Greek Cypriots.

You claim they worked in unison, yet many history books claim the settlers on the island always opposed the harsh ruling of the Venetians.

Stop trying to re-write your own history...blooming Greeks!

[shahmaran]

End of Cyprus Kingdom...

After years of enduring rapacious forays by neighboring states, the weakened Kingdom of Cyprus was forced to turn to its ally Venice to save itself from being dismembered. In 1468, by virtue of a marriage between James II and Caterina Cornaro, daughter of a Venetian noble family, the royal house of Cyprus was formally linked with Venice. James died in 1473, and the island came under Venetian control. Caterina reigned as a figurehead until 1489, when Venice formally annexed Cyprus and ended the 300-year Lusignan epoch.

For ordinary Cypriots, the change from Lusignan to Venetian rule was hardly noticeable. The Venetians were as oppressive as their predecessors, and aimed to profit as much as possible from their new acquisition. One difference was that the wealth that had been kept on the island by the Frankish rulers was taken to Venice--Cyprus was only one outpost of the far-flung Venetian commercial empire.

End of the Venetian rule...

The former foreign elite was destroyed--its members killed, carried away as captives, or exiled. The Orthodox Christians, i.e., the Greek Cypriots who survived, had new foreign overlords. Some early decisions of these new rulers were welcome innovations. The feudal system was abolished, and the freed serfs were enabled to acquire land and work their own farms. Although the small landholdings of the peasants were heavily taxed, the ending of serfdom changed the lives of the island's ordinary people. Another action of far-reaching importance was the granting of land to Turkish soldiers and peasants who became the nucleus of the island's Turkish community.

Although their homeland had been dominated by foreigners for many centuries, it was only after the imposition of Ottoman rule that Orthodox Christians began to develop a really strong sense of cohesiveness. This change was prompted by the Ottoman practice of ruling the empire through millets, or religious communities. Rather than suppressing the empire's many religious communities, the Turks allowed them a degree of automony as long as they complied with the demands of the sultan. The vast size and the ethnic variety of the empire made such a policy imperative. The system of governing through millets reestablished the authority of the Church of Cyprus and made its head the Greek Cypriot leader, or ethnarch. It became the responsibility of the ethnarch to administer the territories where his flock lived and to collect taxes. The religious convictions and functions of the ethnarch were of no concern to the empire as long as its needs were met.

In 1575 the Turks granted permission for the return of the archbishop and the three bishops of the Church of Cyprus to their respective sees. They also abolished the feudal system for they saw it as an extraneous power structure, unnecessary and dangerous. The autocephalous Church of Cyprus could function in its place for the political and fiscal administration of the island's Christian inhabitants. Its structured hierarchy put even remote villages within easy reach of the central authority. Both parties benefited. Greek Cypriots gained a measure of autonomy, and the empire received revenues without the bother of administration.

[shahmaran]

It was when the Ottoman Empire started to decline along with the economic situation of Cyprus that the Cypriots started to revolt against the Empire.

So the key word is "ungrateful bastards", not surprising coming from the children of James the Bastard